What is a co-op?

We could define it as a open, member-owned business, but those descriptors are all woefully inadequate. Instead, this class begins with the idea that cooperatives are a historic and radical means of organizing around shared priorities, and that they can be leveraged to solve 21st century problems in ways traditional businesses fail.

In Berkeley, one of the cooperative capitals of the United States, we will trace together the history of cooperatives back from Fenwick & Owen to the old Berkeley Food Cooperative, examining the successes and failures these democratized groups have experienced. Moving onto today's cooperative landscape, we'll analyze how modern cooperatives have reorganized and reoriented themselves to face issues of environmental degradation, social inequality, and economic instability.

To best understand the cooperative movement today, we'll have to experience it ourselves: this means we'll be speaking in-person with seminal figures in co-ops, visiting local businesses as a class, and facilitating a highly-democratic classroom environment by employing cooperative values ourselves. This class' content strongly influences its structure: we believe learning is best done, well, cooperatively.

** Class sessions will be on Wednesdays, 6:10-8:00pm, in 187 Dwinelle, beginning on January 25, 2017. **

Interested in enrolling? Please attend our first class on Wednesday, January 25, at 6pm in 187 Dwinelle. Email Grace Lihn at coopsatcal(at)gmail(dot)com if you have questions or concerns. We look forward to seeing you in class!